Towards the sunset
by Cyn V
Summary: When Rin left Konoha to make a living in Tanzaku Town, she found an enclosed society built on solidarity between bandits, thieves, murderers and... people who were lost.


**Disclaimer: Kishimoto owns _Naruto_. I just fool around with it.  
><span>Notes<span>: Short Obito/Rin AU featuring retired-ninja!Rin and amnesiac!Obito. Enjoy!**

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><p><strong>Towards the sunset<strong>

When Rin had first left Konoha to make a living in Tanzaku Town, this was what she had expected to find:

A small town on the outskirts of the capital city of Fire Country, its lifeblood were the tourists that flocked to visit the old castle that had served as the headquarters to the Fire Daimyou's army before the creation of the ninja villages, four generations ago.

What the once ninja found was:

Underneath the shiny veneer, the spectacle put on to impress the visitors, lay a hive of degradation and corruption, an enclosed society built on solidarity between bandits, thieves, murderers and... people who were lost.

Rin had made the decision to give up her ninja career on the day it had been announced that the Third Ninja World War was over. She had seen too much suffering and did not care to see any more.

Red, red, red on her hands, staining, flowing, crusting and spilling onto the sawdust-covered floor. But there were other things to focus on. After all, the injured never stopped coming, placing their red lives on her hands.

The Hokage had been sorry to see her go, but, in recognition of her loyalty and efforts in the service of Konoha, he had allowed her to go on an indefinite leave.

Her grandmother had watched, grim-faced, but understanding, as Rin had packed her belongings, laying clothes on top of clothes on top of a headband folded at the very bottom of a light bag. "Be safe and come back once you find yourself again," had been her farewell.

She had wanted to sever every tie that connected her to Konoha, but the townspeople of Tanzaku had soon discovered her skills as a healer and, one after another, the ill and the distressed had started queueing in front of the grocer's shop where she had found a job as a clerk, seeking her help and advice.

It had been jarring at first, to be asked to prescribe pills for migraines and heal scraped knees, rather than severed limbs and third degree burns to over 70% of the body.

By the time she had gotten a house of her own with enough space on the ground floor to accommodate a small clinic, the illusion of Tanzaku's lawfulness no longer fooled Rin. Then again, neither could she convince them that she was just some girl who happened to know a thing or two about medicine, but she never asked questions and they afforded her the respect not to pry into her undisclosed past.

A split brow, painting the side of a young man's handsome, if not unmarked, face a deep red. It would scar, she knew immediately, a fault line across a fine black eyebrow. "A fall," he had said with a roguish grin once he had caught her shell-shocked stare. Next was a bruised rib, then a broken arm, then a stab wound to the gut that had nearly done him in.

Sometimes, the authorities stopped by her practice, wanting to know more about the various falls and slips her most frequent patients constantly found themselves involved in. But there was still enough of the ninja in her that she could convince them of the truth: some of her patients were, tragically, very clumsy.

He looked at her closely, avoiding the gaze of the constable who had planted himself in front of the little stool he sat on, attempting to read the story written in the scars covering the right side of his face, while Rin stitched a cut on his upper arm. His dark eyes revealed nothing, but his newly flawed eyebrow twitched briefly with every silent moment that passed before she acknowledged the officer's inquiry.

She kept her life separate from theirs during the day.

During the night, after locking both the front door and the door that separated the public area of the ground floor from the privacy of the first floor, she often came up to her bedroom to find that roguish grin and flawed eyebrow waiting for her:

"Is it all right if I stay the night, doc?"

"Always, Obito."


End file.
